Q&A: Courtland Merrill on Meta’s $175m damages verdict and the blow to big tech
Meta Platforms faces a $175 million damages verdict, after a Texas jury last week found that its Facebook and Instagram platforms had infringed patents developed by a US army veteran.
Courtland Merrill, partner at Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr, shares insights with WIPR about the case, its significance and the future implications for litigation involving big tech companies.
What is the significance of this verdict?
The verdict indicates that the Western District of Texas remains a potentially patent-friendly venue despite cases being reassigned away from Judge Albright.
In late July of 2022, the chief judge in the district ordered that new patent cases filed to Waco, Texas, where Judge Albright is chambered, would be randomly assigned among the 12 judges within the district.
Previously, any case filed in Waco was automatically assigned to Albright, who had encouraged patent plaintiffs to flock to his court. The assignment order came amid increased scrutiny of Judge Albright’s consolidation of patent litigation in his courtroom.
The Voxer v Facebook case had already been reassigned from Judge Albright to Judge Yeakel in Austin in November 2021. However, upon receiving the case, Judge Yeakel proceeded in a fast, efficient manner, much in the same way patent owners had come to enjoy from Judge Albright—the reasons that brought patent holders to file patent suits in the Western District of Texas in the first instance.
Judge Yeakel denied Meta’s motions for summary judgment. He also assigned critical motions in limine by Facebook that sought to exclude Voxer’s technical and damages experts to a magistrate judge, who in turn denied the motions. Judge Yeakel overruled Meta’s objections to those decisions. He then put the case on for a jury trial in September. Voxer could hardly be unhappy with the reassignment, given these rulings.
What implications will this ruling have for big tech?
Big tech is likely going to want to continue its efforts to get cases filed in the Western District of Texas transferred to perceived friendly venues, eg, the Northern District of California. Given the pretrial rulings by Judge Yeakel, one could only think that big tech will continue to view the Western District of Texas as a whole as unfriendly territory, even when cases are not assigned to Judge Albright.
Was the ruling expected?
After reading the pretrial decisions (in particular the denial of motion in limine seeking exclusion of Voxer’s experts) and the decisions by the Patent Trial & Appeal Board (PTAB) denying inter partes review (IPR) of the patents-in-suit, the favourable verdict was not particularly unexpected. Almost every major patent case these days involves a parallel action before the PTAB seeking review of the patents. Here, Meta sought review of Voxer’s patent before the PTAB.
Was there anything notable about the case?
The PTAB declined to institute review in decisions issued in 2021. Having those favourable decisions in hand set the case up for a much higher probability of success before the district court because the issue of patent validity was largely already decided.
Considerable acknowledgement for the favourable outcome should be given to Voxer’s legal team, which was able to successfully persuade the PTAB not to institute IPRs of the patents-in-suit.
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